Poaching Fruit

I opened a couple of jars of my preserved apricots from summer the other week and made the apricot tart.  I have had a couple of friends ask about how I cooked the apricots and could they do this without having to put them in jars and the preserving side of it.

Poaching fruit is a nice easy way to use up fruit in the fruit bowl, if there is an abundance of a particular fruit in season.  You can poach the fruit and eat straight away or keep in the fridge in the syrup for a week. 

Poached fruit is just like tinned fruit only better.  For the sugar syrup there are three types of syrup, light, medium and heavy.  For a basic poaching syrup I prefer a light syrup but each to their own.  The quantities are below.

Light

1 cup sugar
2 cups water

Medium

1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups water

Heavy

2 cups sugar
2 cups water

Place the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to the simmer.  The sugar will dissolve, give it a quick stir before adding the fruit.

Fruit, you can use any summer stone fruit i.e. Peaches, Apricots, Plums, Pears, Pineapple.

Cook the fruit on the lowest flame with a piece of baking paper over the top of the syrup to ensure the fruit stays in the liquid.  Cook until the fruit is tender.  Take off the heat and if not using straight away allow to cool in the syrup.

If you wish to keep in the fridge, store in the syrup in airtight plastic container for up to a week

I love to serve warm with hot custard during winter.  During summer serve cold with ice cream or if you feel a little decadent serve with a chocolate or vanilla panna cotta.